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What you're asking for is a common ABI. To have shared classes, basic data structures, or even error handling, a binary format needs to be defined and adhered t

What you're asking for is a common ABI. To have shared classes, basic data structures, or even error handling, a binary format needs to be defined and adhered to. Of course, to bake all that into languages (and their runtimes), is a great responsibility; but more than that, it can easily be a severe limitation in the way any language may like to do things. So we have things a little more basic than that, at various levels: 1. API: C. This takes care of a bit more than just data interop and common functions; it maintains an interface, takes care of platform portability concerns (calling conventions, linkage, runtimes), and allows future growth. 2. Modules: From executables and shared objects to services running on a remote machines accessible over TCP/TLS/HTTP(S). 3. Conventions: From free-form (de)serialization formats like JSON/YAML, to read-optimised formats that come with their own implementation code like Cap'n'Proto and Flatbuffers, to share-optimised formats that come with their own read/write/live-share implementation code like Apache Arrow. These come the closest to being a common "ABI", but (thankfully) restrict themselves from being ingrained into a language.

jcranmer 8y ago
> What you're asking for is a common ABI. To have shared classes, basic data structures, or even error handling, a binary format needs to be defined and adhered to. Of course, to bake all that into languages (and their runtimes), is a great responsibility; but more than that, it can easily be a severe limitation in the way any language may like to do things. Being able to speak a common ABI doesn't necessarily guarantee that your local ABI has to conform identically to it. In Rust, for example, you need to add a repr(C) to be able to actually guarantee that the layout conforms to the C ABI. CORBA IDL is something that tried to achieve this kind of capability.
- pritambaral 8y ago
  > Being able to speak a common ABI doesn't necessarily guarantee that your local ABI has to conform identically to it. No, but you still need to support the common ABI. E.g., for Rust, that's an easy job, compared to Go.

jcranmer 8y ago

> What you're asking for is a common ABI. To have shared classes, basic data structures, or even error handling, a binary format needs to be defined and adhered to. Of course, to bake all that into languages (and their runtimes), is a great responsibility; but more than that, it can easily be a severe limitation in the way any language may like to do things. Being able to speak a common ABI doesn't necessarily guarantee that your local ABI has to conform identically to it. In Rust, for example, you need to add a repr(C) to be able to actually guarantee that the layout conforms to the C ABI. CORBA IDL is something that tried to achieve this kind of capability.

pritambaral 8y ago
> Being able to speak a common ABI doesn't necessarily guarantee that your local ABI has to conform identically to it. No, but you still need to support the common ABI. E.g., for Rust, that's an easy job, compared to Go.